Online marketing faces a lot of challenges and changes every year. And so does SEO. It is especially a dynamic process with search engine algorithms updating every month. According to a digital marketing speaker Hong Kong, there are around 3.5 billion daily Google searches. But only 0.78% of these searchers click on the second page of search results. For businesses to stay on the front pages of search results, they need to apply a lot of flexibility and innovations. The most important part is optimizing SEO. Below are top SEO techniques to drive more traffic to your website this 2021.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Today, AI played an important role in the personalization of content. A social media agency Hong Kong notes that Ai has greatly helped determine what the searchers are looking for. The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning can be a game-changer when doing A/B experiments among social media platforms. These help brands decode the best-performing ads and content based on algorithms. 

Core Web Vitals

Google announced new search ranking metrics last May 2020. These are called core web vitals. Core web vitals rank pages according to interactivity, loading, and visual stability. These metrics aim to provide searchers a better website experience. Businesses should pay close attention to optimize the chat functions of a website. They should also work on increasing the loading speed of their pages and compressing visuals to make them mobile-friendly. 

Google EAT & Branded SEO

The main factor when ranking Google search results today is a human reviewer. A human reviewer rates websites based on the Google EAT guidelines. It stands for the following:

  • Expertise reflects the site content’s knowledge over a niche. 
  • Authority is equal to the influence of the site among online viewers.
  • Trust equates to the audiences’ confidence in visiting the site.

A site that displays expertise, authority, and trust is more likely to rank higher on Google. The trend is that reputable brands give more value to consumers because of their larger audience reach.

Influencer SEO

One of the top SEO techniques to drive more traffic to a brand’s website is to partner with influencers. They may be a thought leader from an industry or a key opinion leader (KOL). But most of the time, these people are those who have the power to affect the buying decisions of social media users. Today, around 89% of marketers believe that influencer SEO is the best digital marketing technique. Influencers can help a website build high-quality backlinks. They can create relevant brand content and link it to your products and services. If the content goes viral, there is a higher chance that Google will put it on the top search. Search engines have a soft spot over trending and viral content. 

Original and Unique Content

Creating original and unique content is still the best technique to drive traffic to a website. Consumers nowadays are very smart. They don’t just click and buy according to impulse. They first read the product description, pros & cons, and reviews on a website before making a purchase. With so many competitors online, brands should aim to create content that offers a unique value to their audiences. Some good content materials are case studies, customer testimonials, experiments, infographics, etc. 

Video Marketing

A video marketing agency Hong Kong cited YouTube as the second most popular search engine after Google. With over 1 billion users, it is high time for brands to tap into video marketing. Brands that have a video channel and name can link video content to their social media platforms and websites. To rank in Google search results, they should use relevant keywords when putting captions and meta descriptions on their YouTube videos. It is also best to put a channel description to let Google know what your YouTube channel is all about.

Voice Search

Today, more than 50% of smartphone users engage in voice search. Most of these voice search queries are long-tailed and very specific. As such, brands should optimize the voice search function of their websites to drive more traffic. Such an SEO trend is expected to rise in staggering numbers this 2021. To optimize the voice search function of a website, a business should input multilingual, multi-speech, and multi-text on their voice search functions. They should also list with a physical address on Google My Business as voice search commonly prioritizes local listings. Apart from the physical location, people often commonly search for the exact day and time when a business operates.

The Bottom Line

As a rule of thumb on SEO, businesses should build a website for the consumers and not a spider for a search engine like Google. It is worthless even if you rank on top of the first page of a search result if you can’t convert your leads into customers.

Reference: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2021/01/12/top-seo-trends-2021